Longevity - Chapter 41

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 41: No Path Forward
Jang Saeng couldn’t bear the weight of the young woman’s stare any longer and rose from his seat.
The woman in men’s clothes still held the Kudzu Root in her hand, still watching him. Jang Saeng moved to the southwestern corner where the firelight didn’t reach and ate his remaining portion in silence.
A moment later, the Younger Child approached carrying the Worn Blanket.

“Mother says to take this.”

The Worn Blanket was the only bedding the four of them possessed. It bore stains in places, and one end was damp from having wrapped the small child’s body.
Jang Saeng immediately waved his hand in refusal.

“I’m fine as I am. Keep it for your family.”
“The nights are cold.”
“I’ve slept in the mountains before.”

When the child wouldn’t retreat, Jang Saeng folded the edge of the blanket and pushed it back into the child’s arms.

“If I take it, my sister will shiver.”

Only then did the child nod and turn back.
Unable to repay the gift of food with anything material, the family spoke instead. Questions came carefully—where he was from, where he was going, whether he had parents.
Jang Saeng could not speak the truth.

“I came from the south. I’m traveling to Youzhou where I have relatives.”

The older man’s face brightened.

“We are the Jeon family. Coming from Jizhou as we do, you’re hardly a stranger from a distant land at all.”

Only then did Jang Saeng have a name by which to call the four of them as one family.
At that moment, a shadow appeared in the doorway of the western passage.
It was a woman in tattered clothes. She cradled an infant not yet weaned, holding an empty earthen bowl in both hands. She stood frozen in the threshold—neither entering nor leaving—her lips moving soundlessly a few times.
Jang Saeng understood her purpose at the sight of the bowl.
He placed half of the Kudzu Root he’d been eating into her vessel.

“Please take this.”
“Thank you. Truly…….”

The woman bowed repeatedly and turned to leave.

“Wait.”

Jang Saeng retrieved the Kudzu Root he’d left by the hearth. More than half remained even after sharing with the Jeon family.

“Take this as well. If fire is difficult to make, you can chew it raw in small pieces.”

The woman froze where she stood. The next moment she set down the bowl and knelt.

“Benefactor, thank you for saving us…….”
“Please don’t do this.”

Jang Saeng, flustered, grasped the woman’s arm and pulled her up. As he forced her to her feet, the child’s face wrapped in cloth came into view.
The head was disproportionately large for its body, and beneath drooping brows, the light in its eyes had dimmed. With each breath, the small chest sank inward, yet it seemed to lack even the strength to cry.
Jang Saeng’s hands slowed.
He could see it clearly, even without the medical texts—the body had already spent its final reserves. The breath he could feel now was not one that food could restore, no matter how much he gave.
He could not bring himself to touch the child’s wrist and only lowered his head.
The woman asked nothing more upon seeing his expression. Clutching the Kudzu Root to her breast, she bowed several times and retreated into the eastern passage.
Shortly after, the refugees crowded into the yard. Some bent at the waist; others pressed their foreheads to the ground. Jang Saeng didn’t know where to put his hands, and he hurried from one person to the next, urging them to their feet.

“Please, don’t do this to me. Divide the food first.”

The thanks would not cease. Jang Saeng repeated the same words with a rigid expression, and only when the people had departed did he exhale a long breath.
When he returned to the shelter, the Jeon family was staring at the empty space where the roots had been. The child peered into the hollow pot once, then pressed his lips together.
Jang Saeng understood what they were thinking.

“The people to the east had nothing to eat either. We can find more tomorrow.”

Old Jeon asked carefully.

“Can you find more?”
“I can.”

Jang Saeng sat in the corner and placed the wooden knife on his lap. His answer was brief, but four people believed him enough to fall asleep.
* * *
In the predawn darkness, weeping erupted from the eastern quarters.
One person’s grief spread to another. The woman’s hoarse voice lasted longest of all.
Jang Saeng lay with his eyes open, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t need to ask—he already knew that the child who had slept in his arms last night was dead.
He gathered his firewood and walking stick and stepped outside. The path below the mist held no shadow of a living soul.
The Jeon family hurried out after him, their belongings in hand.
Jang Saeng had meant only to get some air and return. But when he heard the footsteps of four people behind him, he simply continued walking westward.
His twisted leg kept the pace slow. The Jeon family followed without strain.
Now that he had companions, there was less need to play the woodcutter. Jang Saeng watched the slopes and fields on either side of the path far more often than the path itself.
Where large trees crowded thick in the shade, edible plants were sparse. In places where reeds grew as tall as a man, the roots tangled all the way down to the earth. Conversely, on crumbling stone where dark, soft soil had gathered, thick-rooted plants clustered together.
Jang Saeng called over the Elder Child and Younger Child of the Jeon household.

“Look at the flowers first. Blue flowers are likely Balloon Flowers. Yellow Daylilies can be eaten too, but freshly picked flowers contain poison—you must dry them before eating.”

The Elder Child spread open the leaves where Jang Saeng pointed.

“Do we only dig the roots?”
“You must look at the stems and leaves as well. Just because something looks similar doesn’t mean you can put it in your mouth.”

She acted as though she had never been discovered wearing male dress. Jang Saeng did the same.
When searching for mushrooms, he examined the tree they grew on, their smell, and the shape beneath the cap. On the dead branches of elms and willows, he found Wood Ear Mushrooms; beneath pines, he carefully brushed through fallen leaves.
Jang Saeng placed only what he was certain was edible into the basket. The children’s eyes grew sharp enough to recognize even the plants and mushrooms he discarded.

“Why did you throw that one away?”
“Not knowing a thing is the safest way to go.”

That day they found no Kudzu Root. Instead, below the slope they discovered a patch of Jerusalem Artichoke, and nearby sprawled a climbing vine called Glutinous Rice Vine

that covered a wide expanse.
When Jang Saeng showed them which roots were edible, the Jeon family began digging without a word. The Younger Child scratched the soil until the earth beneath his nails turned black, and Old Jeon wrapped each tuber in cloth as it was unearthed.
That evening, five people had full bellies.
In the days that followed, the routine remained much the same. They traveled less distance, but the Jeon family’s pack grew heavy with edible roots. Jang Saeng did not dig what he found alone; instead, he repeated again and again which soil and which leaves to examine first.
Someday they would have to part. When that time came, he hoped these people would see the grasses beside the road and not starve.
Swelling remained in the Jeon family’s faces and legs. Jang Saeng selected herbs that could draw out poison and reduce inflammation, brewing them for the family to drink. After several days, the marks left by pressing a finger faded faster than before.

“We ate wild grass, so why did our bodies swell?”

When Old Jeon asked, Jang Saeng stirred the leaves in the pot before answering.

“Shepherd’s Purse, Bracken Fern, and Bitter Vegetable—if you eat only one of them continuously, it harms the body. Don’t eat leaves alone. Mix in roots and mushrooms.”

For the first time since meeting Jang Saeng, the Jeon family loosened their belts by a notch.
Old Jeon watched closely how Jang Saeng, despite his limping gait, found food and tended to their ailing bodies. Then, each time they rested, he cautiously asked whether Jang Saeng had reached an age for marriage arrangements.
Jang Saeng did not look toward the Elder Child.

“We were betrothed in childhood. The reason I’m traveling to Youzhou is to find my father-in-law’s house.”
“I see.”

A barely concealed wistfulness colored the old man Jeon’s reply. But he asked no further questions after that.
The weather remained clear.
Yet to Jang Saeng’s eyes, the sky seemed to grow ever darker. Along the road lay shattered carts and abandoned straw shoes, and beneath a tree at the village edge lay a corpse not even covered by cloth to hide the face.
The living did not linger long beside the dead. To stop was to lose one’s own share of the journey.
Jang Saeng gripped the Wooden Knife in his hand so hard his knuckles whitened. Once, he had believed no one could be more wretched than himself. But at least he could still find grass and roots, and though his pace was slow, he could walk.
The people on this road had neither a meal for tomorrow nor the strength to bury their fallen kin. Jang Saeng lowered his gaze and walked on.
* * *
Several days later, as the sun began to set, the five of them arrived at the wall of Fenyang County.

The city gate was already closed. The old man Jeon knocked, but no one answered from the battlements.
Jang Saeng spotted a fresh proclamation pasted to the wall. He drew near and read the characters, blurred by rain.
Yi Cun-xiao

had recently occupied Fenyang, and the new magistracy posted that they would distribute Household Registries, vacant houses, and seeds to refugees who had fled their hometowns, to put the people’s minds at ease. The proclamation also stated they would no longer hold against the residents who had aided the government forces during the siege.
It was said that many people had died among the townspeople who helped the official army during the siege. If they punished even the survivors, no one would be left in the city to till the fields. The new magistracy needed to bind people to these ruined houses and lands once more.
As Jang Saeng read the contents aloud, the faces of Jeon’s family transformed all at once.

“Does it truly mean we’ll be accepted as well?”
“It states that refugees from other hometowns can register with the magistracy too.”

The old man Jeon looked up at the city gate and covered his face with both hands. After wandering for more than half a year, he finally had a place where he could stay tomorrow.
Jang Saeng too felt relieved. Once Jeon’s family was entered into the Registry, he could set out westward alone again. The merit of having taught them how to survive on the road would find its true purpose once the gate opened.
The old man Jeon asked him to read the last line of the proclamation again. As Jang Saeng pointed to each character, his wife drew the Younger Child’s head to her breast, and the Elder Child gazed long beyond the city wall.
Yet they had to endure this night outside the walls.
Dark clouds were gathering in the western sky. The Relay Station risked frequent visits from soldiers, and the Charity Mortuary

—a place for corpses—repelled Jeon’s family entirely.
They made their way to the City God Temple

to the east of the city.
The wall was half collapsed, and the caretaker was nowhere to be seen. Even in darkness, the statue of the City God in the main hall stared with wide, unblinking eyes.
Jeon’s family stepped over the threshold but retreated at once.

“We cannot sleep in there.”

In the end, all of them settled in the western outbuilding. Before the night air grew too cold, they gathered scattered rafters and dry grass and kindled a fire.
Just as the flames began to rise, cursing and footsteps sounded from beyond the collapsed southern wall.
Jang Saeng stepped out of the outbuilding.
Four men bearing weapons were approaching the temple. Their clothes were as tattered as beggars’, but they walked without hesitation, and several yellow cloth scraps were layered on their chests.
Disciples of the Beggar Gang.

Before Jang Saeng could retreat, the Mustached Man raised his blade tip.

“What are you staring at? Look once more and I’ll gouge out your eyes.”

Jang Saeng lowered his head and returned to the outbuilding.
Jeon’s family watched him with frightened eyes.

“Benefactor, who was that outside?”
“Not good people.”

Jang Saeng looked at the Elder Child of Jeon’s family and rubbed his own cheek with the palm of his hand.
She grasped his meaning at once. But the fire had only just caught, and there was no charcoal yet. She quickly seized a handful of earth mixed with dust and ash from the ground and rubbed it over her face and neck.
The footsteps stopped at the door. The four men did not go to the main hall but entered the western outbuilding directly.
The Mustached Man shouted at Jang Saeng.

“What are you dawdling about? Who are these people?”
“Refugees, sir. They’re fleeing the war.”
“Refugees?”

The man seized Jang Saeng by the hair and wrenched his face upward, scanning from his brows to behind his ears before releasing him roughly and patting down his chest and waist.

“If you’ve got money, hand it over now. Hide it and I’ll cut your wrists off.”

Jang Saeng’s coins weren’t in a purse but strung lengthwise inside his belt. The man’s fingers grazed the knot but didn’t notice.
He shoved Jang Saeng aside and moved toward Yi Cun-xiao.
An empty sleeve and a tattered bundle yielded nothing. The other bandits laughed as they rifled through even the Younger Child’s clothes.
Finally, the Mustached Man stepped in front of the Elder Child.
She took a step back.

“Why are you retreating?”

The man’s eyes narrowed. He ran his rough hands over her shoulders and waist, then stopped.
His lips twisted as he looked at her mud-caked face again.

“Well, well, luck’s on my side today. There’s a girl hiding here.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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